City/Town

Romanian Housebreakers Beware

Extramural Activity4 Comments
2014-05-08 Romanian+

Graffiti in The Village area (south Belfast). The precise reason for the graffiti is unknown (leave a comment/e-mail if you know). Romanians were in the first wave of European immigration to Northern Ireland and came under attack especially in 2009.  More recently, a Romanian had faeces thrown at him last week (BelTel) and attacks against immigrants, Poles in particular, have been on the rise in recent months. The latest is this attack (Tele) on a family in Templemore Avenue and an attack by a gang of fifteen people (Guardian). Last week saw “Locals only/Get out!” graffiti in east Belfast (U.tv – includes video| The Journal) and south Belfast (NewsLetter). Last year, “No blacks” graffiti was directed at two Nigerians, also in east Belfast (BBC). The Polish envoy has expressed his concerns to the PSNI (Guardian | IrishNews).

Previously: Never Actually Existed

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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
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Their Name Liveth For Evermore

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2014-05-08 No4Platoon+

Four generations of headgear and rifles, from 1912 to the present, are featured in this new UVF board in Glenwood Street. A portion of the previous No. 4 Platoon ‘graveyard scene’ mural it replaces can be seen in the top right, with black figures superimposed. The title of the post, which comes from Ecclesiasticus 44, appears on the accompanying info panel along with a verse from Laurence Binyon’s poem For The Fallen. The fourth verse of Binyon’s poem is more often quoted, as in What Do We Forget When We Remember and At The Going Down Of The Sun.

2014-05-08 No4Info+

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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01860 X01859 for god and ulster dedicated to the memory of fall officers NCOs volunteers number 4 platoon a company 1st belfast battalion ulster volunteer force names and deeds are eternally venerated by their comrades in arms who continue to serve humbly in their honour they went with songs to battle they were young straight of limb true of eyes steady and aglow they remained staunch to the end against odds uncounted they fell with their faces to the foe their name liveth for

Welcome To Our Park

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2014-05-07 WhitewellMid+

“Welcome to our park – Whitewell says “no” to racism.” Above is a detail from a new mural by Lucas Quigley showing children of different ethnicities playing together. The children are also cross-community: the two central figures are wearing Cliftonville and Crusaders kits – two rival north Belfast teams.

Previously: Cliftonville: The Red Army | Crusaders: The Hatchet Men, All Ireland Champions

2014-05-07 WhitewellRight+

2014-05-07 WhitewellWide+

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X01858 X01856 X01857 coıste na nıarchımí/Tar Isteach

Roads Through Life

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14 05 06 North7Children+

“Pathways through childhood – Sweet childish that were as long as twenty days are now.” The good old days in south Belfast and its streets are remembered in these three panels from the Donegall Road railway bridge.

“Sam Boyd, 1907-1984 – the man with poetry in his soul.” “South Belfast folk poet.”

The “Streets of dreams”, some of them no longer in existence, are: Coolderry, Coolbeg, Coolfin, Fortuna, Egeria, Daphine, Pandora, Euterpe, Thalia, Coolmore, Abingdon, Colchester, Barrington, Empire, Maldon, Utility, Rydalmere, Rockland, Kitchener, Nubia, Soudan, Kilburn, Benburb, Ebor, Lecale, Moltke, Roden, Tavanagh, Rockview, Monarch Parade, Donegall Avenue.

These are seventh, eighth, and tenth panels on the north side of the bridge; for the other panels on this (north) side of the road, see also:

The Harvest of Love (1 & 9)
Those Days Are Over (2)
A Woman’s Place Is Everywhere (3)
The Thread Of History (4)
For Me There Will Be No More War (5)
In The Wars (6)
Roads Through Life (7, 8, 10)

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14 05 06 North10Streets+

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Surviving The Titanic

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2014-05-06 South5Titanic+

Here are two final images from the south side of the Donegall Road bridge over the Victoria Street line, one about Titanic and the other about locals awarded the MBE.

“I was in Lifeboat 13. I always remember that. My father was waving to us and talking to a clergyman, the Rev. Carter. The Titanic went in the ice and I heard three bangs. Before we hit, there had been terrific vibrations from the engines during the night as the ship was really racing over the sea. As the lifeboat pulled away we heard cries from the people left on the Titanic and in the water and explosions in the ship. There were lots of bodies floating … We were in the lifeboat nine hours. I kept looking in the water for my father and when we reached New York we went to the hospitals to see if he had been picked up.” Mrs. Charlotte Collier

How many people survived the Titanic is one of the most frequently asked questions regarding the history of this legendary ship. Of the 2,228 passengers and crew members who set sail, only 705 survived the Titanic.

See previously: Titanic Lifeboat | The Titanic Story and various other Titanic murals

1. Belfast Blitz #2
2 & 10. The Thread Of History (weavers)
3 & 9. Work Organises Life
4. In The Wars (Korea)
5  & 8. Surviving The Titanic
6. The Door Opens And Lets The Future In (Carnegie Library)
7. The Beautiful Blues (Linfield football)

2014-05-06 South8Choice+

2014-05-06 South+

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Copyright © 2014 Seosamh Mac Coılle
X01850 X01853 X01844 disaster great loss of life buckingham palace “Being a man or a women is a matter of birth. Being a man or women who makes a different is a matter of choice.” Tommy Wilson, MBE – for service to the community; Rita Mills MBE – for service to the civil service

A Woman’s Place Is Everywhere

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2014-05-06 North3Women+

“The test for whether or not you can hold a job should not be the arrangement of your chromosomes. A women is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform. Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.” This past Saturday (2015-03-08) was International Women’s Day. The board above (on one of the Donegall Road bridges) features the Westinghouse ‘We Can Do It!’ poster (often mistaken for Rosie The Riveter) (WP) though here with a women’s liberation badge on her collar (shown in large size on the right). She is between images of women at work. See also: The Home Front.

X06623 2019-06-11 We Can Do It+

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Copyright © 2014/2019 Extramural Activity
X01837 X06623 funded by the northern ireland executive delivered through the department of social development neighbourhood partnership

Those Days Are Over

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2014-05-06 Suffragettes+

“Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.” (Bella Abzug).

Above is a board on the Donegall Road bridge showing women drumming up an audience for a suffragette meeting in the Ulster Hall in November 1912. The image in the bottom right is of Emmeline Pankhurst being arrested in London in 1914; the top image is of Pankhurst on tour in the US in 1913 (LoC; see Pieces Of History for a description of the tour; she gave a speech entitled ‘Freedom Or Death’). Pankhurst spoke in Belfast at the 1912 meeting, though the speakers advertised on the placards are “Mrs Charlotte Despard, Miss Irene Miller, Mrs Edith How-Martyn, Miss Alison Neilans“.

The first suffrage group in Ireland was the North Of Ireland Women’s Suffrage Society, founded in Belfast in 1872 by Isabella Tod.

See also Belfast’s Infamous Prison for information about suffragettes held in Crumlin Road Gaol.

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X01836 ulster hall meeting monday nov 25

Work Organises Life

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14 05 06 SouthWorking+

Here are two panels from the Donegall Road bridge at Roden Street both concerned with working life in the area in years gone by. The (uncredited) words at the bottom of the first board come from a Bill Clinton speech. At greater length, it goes “I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work. Work organizes life. It gives structure and discipline to life. It gives meaning and self-esteem to people who are parents. It gives a role model to children …”

The second features two stanzas from a poem called here “The Weaver’s Prayer” but also known as “The Master Weaver”, “The Weaver”, and “Just A Weaver”, and commonly though not unanimously attributed to one Benjamin Malacia Franklin in the 1940s; it is here said to have been penned by a “female Ulster weaver in 1922”: “Not ’til the loom is silent, and the shuttles cease to fly, shall God unroll the canvas, and explain the reasons why. The dark threads are as neatful, in the weaver’s skilful hand, as the thread of the gold and silver, in the pattern he has planned.”

See previously: The Thread Of History which features two reflections on life as a female weaver.

2014-05-06 Prayer+

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X01848 X01854 “are as needed” “are as needful”

Belfast Blitz #2

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2014-05-06 SouthBlitz+

“The Belfast blitz occur[r]ed when German air raids took place during the spring of 1941. The first raid took place on April 7th/8th, an exploratory raid to test the cities [sic] defences, which resulted in the death of 13 people in the docks area. The next raid came at Easter on April 15th/16th when one hundred and fifty bombers attacked resulting in over 1,000 people being killed and 1,500 injured. This was the highest casualty rate of any air raid outside of London during the Second World War. The final raid took place on May 4th/5th when two hundred and fifty bombers attacked the city, dropping 230 tons of high explosives and over 100,000 incendiary bombs, this raid killed 200 people and set fires raging across the city.”

This board is on Donegall Road.

Previously: The Belfast Blitz and also Connswater Commemorates.

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